Deus Ex boxed PC copies are only kind of region locked

If you're thinking about importing a boxed retail copy Deus Ex: Human Revolution from the UK, you may want to reconsider. It came out on Thursday that the title would be region locked to both the UK and Russia. Initially, there was a good deal of speculation; many thought the region locking was due to the game's surprisingly low UK prices. With some as low as £27.49 (including shipping) this is definitely a plausible explanation.

That's not the issue, it seems. Jay Walker of Square Enix Europe has done his best to clarify the situation stating that they were incapable of including each language due to the size of the game itself: "All this is really due to the languages having to be split onto the discs for retail."

The game will be shipping in five different batches -- English (UK), English/French (US), French/German, Italian/Spanish, and Polish/Russian -- but a language pack will be available for download at launch..

Splitting up the languages has prompted Square Enix to require a bit of region locking on all retail copies of the game. If it is purchased in the UK, it must be activated on Steam in the UK. You can play it on your foreign PC so long as it's activated on a UK PC.

While it's good to know that the game itself is not region locked, the activation restriction will likely be enough frustration for those who were looking to save some money. It seems like Square Enix is really trying to support importing or, at the very least, it's not their intention to try and prevent it.